by Elsa Jade
A little shiver went down her spine.
The God of Beloveds… That was the god Blackworm had invoked when he was going to send Trixie into the black hole to petition for his dead girlfriend’s return. He’d claimed the black hole was a passageway to the realm of the gods.
Inadvertently, she glanced up over her shoulder at the particulate streams that flowed toward the invisible singularity. They couldn’t really see the hole itself, just the light and matter falling inevitably, permanently inward.
Inevitable and permanent, except Blackworm had believed his beloved could escape…
She refused to get the shivers from a dead delusional psychopath.
When she glanced at the alien beside her, he was staring up too, but at her movement, he redirected his gaze to her. There was enough artificial illumination in the nexus—coming from the various hallways and the grow lights on the plantings—that the glow of starlight and the partial view of the black hole’s radiance shouldn’t have been obvious. And yet his dark eyes reflected the eerie luminosity. If anything, the isolated sparkle of stars seemed larger in his black irises…
He reached out as if he were going to caress her cheek…and stuck the flower behind her ear.
She blinked. When had he gotten so close to her? She settled back on the heels of her slippers abruptly—when had she leaned so close to him?—and the yellow blossom bobbed in her peripheral vision, like a sunrise.
For all its brightness, it wasn’t reflected in his eyes, though he was looking right at it, right at her.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
He blinked—and somehow it was a strange gesture, as if he were copying her. When his long lashes parted, his eyes were just…dark and clear. Had she imagined the stars swirling there? “I am called Tynan. Who are you?”
She hesitated. But he was just the local holy man officiating at Rayna’s wedding. So why was her heart skipping every other beat? “I’m Lishelle.”
A faint line appeared between his strong black brows. “Lishelle…” As if he’d heard of her.
She wanted to smack her forehead. Of course he’d heard of her. She was one of the Black Hole Brides and an Earther; not too many of those anywhere near Thorkon space.
He touched the flower at her temple, and a drift of golden pollen wafted down. “When you look into the abyss, what do you see? A flower? Yourself?”
“Wh-what?” Now her heart was skipping every three beats, practically a jazz trio in her veins. “I didn’t…”
His fingertip eased higher, tracing her baby hairs and coiling into the locks she’d been growing out with alien styling product before the wedding. “Everyone does, eventually. But you…you were right there, weren’t you?” He leaned closer, capturing the intoxicating scent of the flower between their bodies, and pressed his lips to her forehead.
She closed her eyes helplessly.
The senior medic onboard the rescue dreadnaught had kept in touch ever since, offering help with their universal translators, getting them the necessary inoculations…and gently steering them toward mental health care to deal with the aftermath of their trauma. But after discovering the existence of memory wiping, admitting any lingering nightmares seemed to Lishelle like an invitation to lose sovereignty of her own mind. And while she might not be duchess of a solar system, she was her own queen.
An imprisoned queen, locked up tight.
But Tynan didn’t push for an answer. He just breathed with her for a moment, that strange, sweet pollen drifting around them.
Church had been a huge part of her life with her aunties, but finding the right community once she’d gone away to school had been hard, and she’d fallen away, gotten too busy. To receive a kind, compassionate touch rattled at the chains she hadn’t realized she was still holding.
And that she wasn’t sure she wanted to let go.
Not yet. What did she have left in this new life except the tatters of the old?
Rather than let him unravel her, she tilted her head—not far; she was tall, not as tall as him, but enough—and let his lips fall lightly on hers.
He exhaled softly, a sound of surprise and, she thought, pleasure. The perfume of the flower seemed a hundred times as strong, making her lightheaded.
Maybe she was going to hell for groping a man of God, but considering she’d already been right on that event horizon, she wasn’t sure it mattered. Floating dreamily, as if she were just another mote of pollen looking for a place to land, to mingle, to bloom, she reached up to thread her fingers through his hair. It was every bit the dark silkiness she thought it would be, and she made a fist to hold him close. Not that he was making any attempt to escape. He matched her embrace, his hand slipping back to cup her nape, his grip lighter than hers, maybe, but no less insistent.
Their breaths seethed between them, each swapped gust of air a little more ragged and needy than the last.
Maybe it was just that her friend was getting married, or maybe she was finally ready to believe she’d made it out alive, and wanted to feel alive. But she couldn’t stop herself from fitting her curves to the strong angles his body. As much as Rayna and Trixie had giggled about their Thorkon males, Lishelle suddenly understood the appeal. When God—or the gods—had been distributing hard bodies, s/he had been particularly generous with this galaxy.
She laid her palms flat over his chest, not quite a prayer but certainly in thanksgiving. The intense thud of his heartbeat under her hands was almost as fast as her own. When he finally lifted his head, his dark eyes glittered with a desire brighter than the stars had been. “A kiss,” he murmured, with a note of wonder in his voice. “It’s been so long…”
Uh-oh. Were Thorkon holy men celibate? The Thorkons she knew were forthright people, not repressed like some religious types, but just because the flock might stray didn’t mean the shepherd was easy.
Not that Tynan seemed easy. If anything, his hold on her was as unwavering as his gaze, and the way he angled one knee between her thighs as he fit her against him was the instinctive move of an experienced male. It sent a pulse of pleasure through her groin, tightening her inner muscles with delicious anticipation.
She licked her lips. “Should I…not have kissed you?”
“You took the first step.”
Unsure whether he was accusing or approving, she nodded cautiously.
“The first invocation of the beloved is the Prayer of Steps Seeking,” he murmured, “when the lover takes the first step toward the beloved, however far away.” And his mouth crashed down on hers again with undeniable mastery.
So, okay, not celibate.
She fell into the kiss gladly, leaning into him with all her not negligible weight, trusting the Thorkon strength of his braced legs. He held her easily, as if the artificial gravity of the station had failed and she was light as a flower petal. That would explain the whirling of her senses…
No, he was lifting her, spinning her toward one of the benches tucked between two planters where trailing vines of the yellow blossoms created an intimate bower.
Wait… Had the topiary been so overgrown before? The wild roving vines were so unlike the bold geometric shapes the Thorkons favored.
And then she couldn’t care about alien theology or botany, only the most basic biology—and she was an eager student—as he laid her down on the wide lip of concrete. The coolness through her gown should’ve shocked her, but the contrast to the hot need coursing through her only made her arch upward into his embrace with a moan.
The musky sweetness of the flowers drenched them, and he never stopped kissing her as he flipped up the hem of her skirts. His fingers trailed up the backside of her leg from ankle to mid-calf in a not-quite tickle that made her bend her knee to him to relieve the unbearable sensation.
To wordlessly demand he give her more.
The brush of his touch on the inner curve of her bare thigh made her head tilt back into the crook of his other arm where he supported her sprawl across the bench. She
found herself staring up at the black hole which, by the spin of the station, had centered itself at the peak of the skylight, though the long tangle of vines had partially obscured the panes.
For once she didn’t even care about that menacing eye. She wanted it to see her being alive and fearless when Blackworm had tried to steal both of those from her.
She splayed her knees wider—and said a blessing of her own for the Thorkon habit of leaving aside underwear when Tynan’s hand drifted higher while his mouth trailed from her lips down the column of her throat to lick at her raging pulse.
He made a rough, hungry sound in the back of his throat when his hand closed over her mound, as reverent as when he’d cupped the flower, and nestled one finger through the tight pubic curls to trace her slick folds. The scent of her arousal—sweeter and muskier than the flowers—reached her, and she let out a moan.
With a belated hint of shame, she tightened her thighs, about to close him out. She hadn’t come here (oh, how she wanted to come, right here, right now!) to hook up with an alien pastor on a park bench under the permanent night sky.
But when he eased his long finger inside her and crooked it into her G spot, her knees parted like the landing bay doors. C’mon in.
But he seemed in no hurry to unload. He stroked her trembling channel while managing to keep the heel of his palm snug against her clit. As if he already knew exactly what she wanted and how she liked it.
She couldn’t believe she was letting this happen, lying back in the curve of his arm as he found the deepest hidden secrets of her pleasure. He kissed at her pulse again, harder, sucking until she bowed up to him with a gasp. The movement strained the V neck of her gown, and with a groan of satisfaction, he nuzzled past the gaping décolletage and licked her nipple.
She shuddered and clung to him while he drew the swollen peak over the edge of his teeth, his tongue flicking the sensitized nub even as his thumb set a matching cadence against her clit.
Oh, the only thing more dangerous to her vigilant equilibrium than a poet was a drummer…
And how fucked up was it that the realization of the threat to her carefully curated prudence sent her over the edge?
She always tried to be a good, giving, game lover, but she came with a strangled scream and a selfish satisfaction as if she were doing it all herself, only for herself. And he urged her on, stoking each wave of her orgasm to its peak before letting her down, finally, to rest in the crook of his arm.
“Your legs tremble,” he murmured against her mouth. “But that is only the first invocation of the beloved.”
He kissed her again, fiercely, three of his fingers buried inside her, and the perfume of her pleasure was eclipsed by the overwhelming fragrance of the flowers. The alien pollen was an unfamiliar flavor on his tongue—deeper than the flowers’ scent, like molasses was darker than honey; had it been on her breast?—and she spasmed one last time against his touch, with one last thought as she swooned…
What was the second prayer?
Chapter 3
She’d never swooned before.
Of course, she’d never been fingerfucked by an alien holy man either, so maybe forgiving her girly moment was fair.
As Lishelle gathered her sensibilities—and her skirts—around her, she realized she was alone on the bench. Where had Tynan gone?
She had to push aside a waterfall of blooming vines to peek out into the nexus.
Then she looked at her own hand, holding back the thick, looping vines. Impossible. The tidy topiary had become a jungle.
But not so jungle-y that she couldn’t see that the nexus was empty except for her and the out-of-control flowers.
The gardeners had said there’d been some strange radiation that affected the plantings earlier. But they’d seemed to think everything was okay now. She snorted in disbelief at that assessment as she shouldered through the lush foliage. It was beautiful, but totally not what they’d been going for, design wise. She’d make a note for the gardeners to come back with their clippers tomorrow and keep an eye on the exposed plants.
She took one step and froze. Had she been exposed to something too?
Now that she thought about it, the shrubbery wasn’t the only thing out of control…
She swiveled slowly on one heel, surveying the empty nexus. And looked up.
The vines had all but covered the skylight, with yellow blossoms like huge, happy suns framed against the darkness. No black hole. The spin of the station had taken it out of view. When she curled her lips inward, the molasses taste of the pollen almost made her choke.
Had she been poisoned too? Was that encounter with Tynan a hallucination or something?
The slick, soft heat lingering between her legs wasn’t just a dream…
She hurried back to her suite, her slippers making no sound on the deck and no footsteps following her.
By the time she locked her door behind her and programmed a message for the garden staff to be delivered in the morning, she’d all but convinced herself that nothing had happened. Busy with wedding prep, she hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so probably her blood sugar was low. Yeah, and then she’d been mesmerized by the black hole and the crazy flowers and…
Nothing had happened.
She sent another note anyway, to Doctor Boshil, who’d coordinated their post-rescue medical needs. If she had been exposed to whatever had gotten the flowers, it would be stupid to pretend nothing had happened.
Even though nothing had.
Feeling a little queasy with uncertainty, she choked down a bowl of soup and a bigger cup of pixberry tea, since fluids were probably what a doctor would order, even an alien doctor, for radiation poisoning and mysterious pollen—then had to go pee because that was a lot of fluids all at once.
As she hiked up her skirts in the bathroom, she found a handprint of pollen on her crotch.
A very big hand.
The yellow powder was bright on her dark skin, like the flowers against the night.
She stripped off everything and jumped into the sonic shower. Then she used the water version. And when the shower beeped a warning at her that she was not being conservation-minded, she switched back to the sonics. As the last droplets vibrated off her skin, she hazarded a glance down.
No pollen, no handprint. See, nothing had happened.
Cautiously, she slid her hand between her legs.
Oh God and gods, she was still wet inside.
Her personal dat-pad was beeping too when she staggered out of the shower. Wrapping herself in one of the ubiquitous Thorkon robes, she dropped onto the big bed with its ton of pillows and replied to the message.
After only a moment, the doctor appeared. “Lishelle,” she said. “How are you?”
Since Lishelle hadn’t told the doctor why she was calling, she was able to keep the lie going for another moment. “Fine,” she said. “I’m sorry I’m calling so late.”
“It’s afternoon where I am on Azthronos.” Boshil smiled with well-practiced encouragement. “But you didn’t call me because you’re fine.”
Haltingly, Lishelle recounted the alien flowers, the overgrowth, the gardeners’ comments about radiation. She stumbled more when she got to the juicy part. “And I…uh, kissed a guy. A Thorkon guy. We didn’t have sex,” she hastened to add. Fingering didn’t count, did it? “But I felt a little…weird.”
“Then that was a bad kiss,” Boshil said somberly.
Despite her inner freak-out, Lishelle laughed. “No, it was fine.” More than fine; more than a simple kiss too…
“Like you said you were fine before?” The doctor gave her a reproving look. “I’ve explained that you are inoculated again intraspecies infections and accidental pregnancy, but broken hearts are something else entirely.”
Shrugging off the memory of the kiss—and more—Lishelle scoffed. “My heart is for sure fine.”
“Well, I’m querying your personal dat-pad scanner now and it isn’t finding anything amiss. If the growth
rate you noticed on the plants was affecting you, we’d see something by now.”
Blossoming lady bits? Lishelle shook her head. “I really do feel fine after talking to you.”
“That’s good. But why don’t you swing through the station clinic tomorrow morning and they’ll run a deeper scan to send to me. And I’ll make a note for the garden staff to send me a sample of the flowers too. Since I’m curious.”
They chatted awhile longer—Boshil had an interest in exotic Earther foods besides coffee—and then disconnected. Lishelle settled down for sleep, feeling better with the doctor’s clean bill of health. Not to mention the lingering satisfaction of her orgasm.
When she fell asleep, she didn’t dream.
The next morning, she chose a mid-thigh day robe in the geometric Thorkon styling. With pants. Her Thorkon gowns were rich and lovely, but maybe she needed pants today.
After breakfasting in her suite, with her heart pounding only a little, she deliberately walked to the nexus where she’d…had her encounter last night.
Nothing. The gardeners must’ve been through already since the topiary were neatly back in their geometric cuts. No wild profusion of vines and flowers. She peeked up at the skylight, but the black hole wasn’t visible at this degree of the station’s spin.
An inkling of her earlier disquiet returned. Had she dreamed the whole thing?
She put her hand on her stomach, over the alien butterflies churning there. A little lower, and she’d have her hand over the pollen-powdered handprint…
It hadn’t been a dream. She might’ve been abducted by aliens, but she wasn’t crazy. Stalking over to the bench where she’d sprawled, she stared down. Nothing, of course; it wasn’t like she was a robot that could see lingering body heat.
So. Much. Body heat…
About to spin away, she caught a glimpse of bright color from the corner of her eye.
Half buried in the mulch of one planter, a single yellow petal shone at her, the crimson veins at its center shockingly vivid.
Relief and a strange thrill poured through her. Tynan was real, and on this station somewhere. She wasn’t going crazy.